SPORTS

Indy 500’s pole day to move to Sunday

By Curt Cavin
curt.cavin@indystar.com

The Indianapolis 500’s qualifying format is headed for a change, with the battle for this year’s pole moved to Sunday, May 18, perhaps at the end of the day. Pole day has traditionally been on Saturday.

IndyCar Series officials had hoped to present final details to competitors this week at regularly scheduled meetings, but that won’t happen, a league spokesman said.

Michael Andretti, a former driver whose Andretti Autosport team unveiled its four-car driver lineup Monday, said he hasn’t worried too much about the change.

“I’m hoping they know better than us and that they’ve come up with the right (plan),” he said. “If they want to run (pole qualifying) on Sunday, in some ways that’s right because Sunday has become (uninteresting).”

In recent years, the fastest nine cars from Saturday qualifying advanced to a shootout at the end of that day. The fastest in that session earned the pole.

The move to Sunday has been spearheaded by Mark Miles, who recently completed his first year as CEO of Hulman & Co., which owns IndyCar and IMS. He believes spreading the pole-day pursuit over two days adds drama to the event.

IndyCar drivers and key team personnel are in Indianapolis through Wednesday afternoon for physicals and meetings at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The meetings are not open to the public.

Already new for IndyCar’s 2014 season is the series’ first road course event at IMS, to be held May 8-10. Oval practice for the 500 begins May 11 with the qualifying weekend May 17-18. The race is May 25.

Andretti’s driver lineup includes Ryan Hunter-Reay, James Hinchcliffe, Marco Andretti and, with help from HVM Racing, rookie Carlos Munoz. The team has moved from Chevrolet to Honda.

Andretti also announced that it will be fielding a Volkswagen in the Global RallyCross series. The 10-race season begins April 21 in Brazil and has six U.S. races.

Call Star reporter Curt Cavin at (317) 444-6409.